Then a lot of things didnt happen for a long time. Or at least they are all part of what I call 'black-out time', which can last for days and weeks.

Joe's: Saturday was Joes on Weed again. Now Joe's is our bread and butter, home away from home, favorite place in the world, but summer times are a little bit rough. The problem is there are a lot of street fests and baseball games and crap like that that tend to syphon off the less zealous TAiacs. This creates worry that the dream is finally dead, nobody loves TA anymore, and the only solution to that is to get even stupider than usual.

Many, many strange things happened on Saturday. Lets put it this way, the Jack-O-Meter was empty well before the encore. Thats disturbing on many... actually just one level. For those that witnessed Purple Rain, you dont need to be told how cool of a moment it was. Lets just say Jay offered the crowd waffles after thorougly trouncing them. Our boy Dave Mutnick was in attendence pimping his blog HTTP://www.STRAIGHTFROMTHEMUT.COM which basically details his own personal drinking problem. I highly recommend it. He asked the band to help pass out pink wrist bands with his website emblazoned on them. The fact that this basically ripped off Breast Cancer Awareness' campaign does not faze the Mut- but trust me, that man cares deeply about breasts and would never do anything to hurt them. I wore several dozen of the bands to show my solidarity and awesome fashion sense. Then the blood got cut off to my hand and i almost passed out.

After the show, the usual drunken antics ensued including trying to herd the TA cats to load the equipment lest David Allen Coe show up for his concert and decide to take shotgun practice on the gear. To little avail, I might add. A few drinks later, and I didnt care as much- let that hillbilly bring it on, I intended to battle him with my pink wristbands. Relics of androgeny are like kryptonite to crackers, or so I reasoned. I also vaguely recall watching my boys visiting from Vegas, Jimmy P, Hot Carl, and Woody, shamble about the bar like they owned the place. Carl somehow found a purple ice pop and was force feeding it to a questionably consenting Joes employee who shall remain nameless. I also recall giving really bad advice to any number of people ("Hey, dont worry about it, it's just a starter marriage") and I distinctly recall Tank, Gina, and I loading the trailer while Joe valiently held on to the ground.

Anyway, that pretty much sums things up for the moment. Tonight is Radiohead! Yes!

Back to the Blog, Part I[ Jun 20, 2006 ]

Ok, i've finally been goaded by enough Then Againiacs (Then Againians? TAers? Total Alcoholics?) to post an update. Much has happened, believe you me, and much of it should never be spoken of for the good of everyone involved and civilization in general. But that has never stopped me before. There is much to cover, so lets get down to business.

Wedding in Indianapolis: I can't imagine showing up to a reception and spotting half a dozen guys in black pants and white dress shirts... all with their sleeves in various stages of ripped offedness. Oh and also one of them wearing multiple ties. There is probably a "Wedding Band for Dummies" book out there with all sorts of rules about 'decorum' and 'manners' and 'not getting way drunker than any of the guests', but apparenly nobody in TA reads anything besides legal briefs and barely legals. The reception was rapacious, devouring all manner of good taste and converting it into drunken hedonism at a rate that was frankly startling. I have no idea what that last sentence meant, but it had a lot of pretty words.

Regardless, fun was had by all but what developed next was even weirder. You see the hotel where everyone was staying had a piano in the lobby. Now, i'm not sure if the 'management' intended said piano to be used as the nexus of a 3am drunken after party/accoustic jam session, but if so they succeeded brilliantly. This all developed in careful stages:Stage 1- determining if the folks at the desk not 20 feet away and in direct line of site were 'cool' with us hanging out in the lobby at 3am. They apparently were, or at least not so miffed as to actually call guards/cops/Homeland Security.Stage 2- determining if hanging out in the lobby could be slightly enhanced with a case of beer. It worked.Stage 3- determining if tinking on the piano while sucking down RBVs would provoke reaction. No problem.Stage 4- Now comes the critical moment. Up to this point, cautious boundary testing was advised, but continuing in such a way would invite an attempt to set limits to our god given lobby blowout. Now was the time to go for broke, pull out accoustic guitars, invite as many staggling drunks returning to the hotel into our party as possible, and set up a little bar consisting soley of RBV and straight Jack. Amazingly, this flew.

The rest of the night consisted of blowing away wedding guests and various other hotel guests by apparently opening a cabaret in the lobby of a nice hotel in the part of the night where the only things that happen are very good or very bad. I swear to god at some point an Al Qaeda member cornered me and told me his life story in stunted English, including plans for 'a mission'. But no-one believes me. At some point we arrived in a situation where legitimate morning commerce was starting up (the sun clued us in) and it was silently decided to shut down the party. 3 hours of quality sleep and Joe and I were back up, fresh as a daisy, shooting the rest of the bottle of jack and pondering Zepelinizing the hotel room to thank them for their understanding. Something known as Buddy Bathtime may or may not have been pondered. And inacted. What? Why am i writing this? Nothing happened. Instead Tank, Fred, Joe, and I scuttled down to the restaurant and ordered up bloody marys. Now you must understand that Sundays in Indiana hold some religious significance, and at first we had trouble getting served. But with our guitars in tow and GPFCH perched firmly on my head, the hotel employees soon recognized us as the 'guys from the lobby last night' and decided to fuck the law and open the bar for us. They apparently heard good reviews from the night shift! I suspect the dozen or so fellow restaurant patrons fresh from church enjoying Sunday brunch were less impressed with our antics, particularly Tank loudly threatening to puke over the buffet. Well, you cant please everyone I guess.

Ars Moriendi[ May 24, 2006 ]

April is the cruelist month? No, May is the cruelest month. Abounding with dashed hopes and broken dreams. Saturday began calmly enough, with the band arriving early to Joe's to get a good soundcheck in before the Carlos Mencia clones grabbed the stage for comedy night. First sign of trouble- no Kyle. Kyle for those who don't know is the stage manager and a good friend. Somehow he finally managed to work time off into his schedule without the club crashing down... I'm not kidding, Kyle is the man, he keeps the show on the road. One of his jobs is keeping the band's libations at the prescribed levels. This is akin to being an anesthesiologist. Too much and Tank is puking in the alley and Joe loses a fistfight with a barstool. Too little the patient wakes up during surgery... ie TA becomes the proverbial cartoon characters who are running in mid-air and inadviseably look down. Thats not pretty either. Kyle was replaced by a new guy who's name may or may not have been Eric (well, if it was Eric it likely still is, I grant you that). He did a fine job, but thats not the point. Change was in the air. Not too mention that WarHero 88/Glory Daze the ultimate roadie was present to add to the impending mayhem.

Second check, Tank has a new ridiculously rare and expensive amp made by Nazi refugees living in Argentina I believe. I was under the impression that all it could play was Flight of the Valkyrees but that may have been a misconception. Now if there is anything I know about a new piece of Tank's equipment, its that it will A. Be heavier and B.Be louder. These two concepts seem to be connected somehow. Modern Public Address was invented by the Nazis, so I suppose its to be expected that the new rig faithfully reproduced a Messerschmitt Me-262 taking off. Tank combatted this with the questionable logic of sticking tiny loudspeakers centimeters from his eardrums and connecting them to 'R2'.

Third hurdle of the day was me having to go lose a hockey game at 7pm because only 9 skaters showed up and one of them let his wrist get slit open by a skate in the first period and had to be rushed to the emergency room. The nerve. For anyone that hasnt double shifted a whole hockey game, its not much fun. If you're 18 or a marathon runner, its no big deal. If your an out of shape 30 year old who sweats jack daniels and takes 3 shifts just to cough all the second hand smoke out of his lungs, its not a great idea.

Fortunately things turned around come about show time. Janice (from Joe's) was totally lit which was a sight to behold, and Emily just graduated (also totally lit it turns out). Lots of drunken antics. Show went fine and afterwards I managed to get some drinks into an oddly relunctant Tank and explain to him it was my self imposed roll in life to hold an RBV over his head and whisper 'memento mori', and there is nothing he can do about it. I then vaguely recall Tank screaming at Yurgi. That pretty much wrapped up the night, aside from a quick jaunt to the grocery store before bed to buy ice cream bars and prophylactics, which also seems to surprise the 70 year old women working there at 7 in the morning (no maam, im not on my way to church).